BE REEL

(Courtesy IMDb)   When Airplane! was first released in the summer of 1980, it represented a new kind of film comedy. This zany and irreverent classic not only lampooned aerial disaster movies that preceded it, but did so while playing serious drama for laughs.  In the early-1970s, around the same time as Woody Allen, Monty Python, and Mel Brooks, Wisconsin-based writers-performers David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker (collectively known as ZAZ) founded the Kentucky Fried Theatre in Madison, WI, combining performance with multimedia projection in outrageous and unconventional ways. They made their film debut with the screenplay for the outrageous sketch comedy feature, The Kentucky Fried Movie (directed by John Landis) in 1977. Three years later, they made their directorial debuts with Airplane!   The fact that they cast actors known for playing serious dramatic roles on TV and in film (including Peter Graves, Lloyd Bridges, and Robert Stack) was what made the co...

WRITER'S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on March 28, 2025.   Let’s be honest: the Disney company hasn’t had a good track record over the past decade when it comes to live-action remakes of titles from their animation canon. Sure, there have been some exceptions ( Cinderella and The Jungle Book , anybody?), as well as a few shot-for-shot entries (I’m looking at you, 2019 Lion King ). But compared with their hand-drawn predecessors, the critical and audience receptions to many of these releases reminds us that some classics are best left untouched. But perhaps no Disney remake has generated more negative publicity than the new version of the animation department’s inaugural full-length feature from 1937.  Starting Rachel Zegler as the titular princess and Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen, Snow White —without the dwarfs in the title—features a plot where the main heroine wishes not for true love, but to rule her father’s kingdom one day, with the values...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on March 21, 2025.  It’s incredible that the Looney Tunes gang have been around for almost a century. Although they’ve starred in hundreds of cartoon shorts, a trio of compilation features, and a few hybrid picks, The Day the Earth Blew Up marks the first fully-animated theatrical release in their long history. And headlining this parody of 1950s sci-fi zaniness are the duo that was there at the beginning: Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. (Bugs Bunny wouldn’t premiere until the early-40s.)  The plot of this new comedy is set up as the wacky duck and straight-man pig investigate the giant hole in the roof of their home, and eventually the strange phenomena stemming from the local gum factory. Slapstick mayhem ensues as they (along with a sweet scientist pig named Petunia) become unlikely candidates to save planet Earth from an alien invasion and a zombie apocalypse.  It’s a thing that this movie exists, thank...

(Courtesy YouTube )   Over the Hedge (2006)  For their first feature under a new distribution deal with Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation adapted a little-known comic strip about a group of forest animals who wake up from hibernation, only to discover a suburban neighborhood behind a giant, long green hedge where the rest of their forest used to be. Meanwhile, a scheming raccoon coaxes the natural critters into pilfering food and other supplies in one week to pay back an angry, hoarding bear he stole from.  Directed by Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, Over the Hedge is one of the studio’s most underrated movies. Besides being charming, entertaining, and (like Madagascar ) very audience-friendly, the film is a clever and witty commentary/satire on suburbia and consumerism; not so much on how that has affected nature (as Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko  so brilliantly did), which may be the one area where this movie falls short. Human characters in this story appar...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 28, 2025.   In early-1970s Rio de Janeiro, wife and mother Eunice Paiva lead her family (four daughters and one son) after her husband Rubens disappeared. During this time, Brazil was under extreme military dictatorship, with officers on patrol, taking prisoners, and looking for those potentially involved with Communists and terrorists. While heavy in subject matter, Walter Salles’ biographical drama I’m Still Here is essentially a story of resilience, endurance, and family.  This Best Picture and International Feature Film nominee at this season’s Academy Awards has arguably been getting a lot of traction since its victory at the Golden Globes last month , thanks to the lead performance by actress Fernanda Torres. (Her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, was nominated in the same category more than a quarter century earlier—for Salles’ 1998 film Central Station —and even makes a brief appearance in t...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 21, 2025.   For his second theatrical effort as a screenwriter and director, actor Jesse Eisenberg steps behind and in front of the camera with an original comedy-drama about two estranged cousins who go on a Holocaust tour in Europe, in memory of their late grandmother. What follows is a madcap and strangely endearing saga about reconnection.  Kieran Culkin has been getting numerous accolades for his live-wire supporting role as lonely cousin Benji, opposite Eisenberg’s family man David. Both form one of the year’s standout screen duos. The former is a force of nature: energetic and foul-mouthed, but also capable of understanding and empathy. (It’s implied that he had a special relationship with his grandmother, hence a reason for his erratic state.)  The film’s classical soundtrack makes it feel like an international arthouse feature in the style of a Woody Allen comedy from the 1970s, co...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 21, 2025.  As both a throwback and tradition of numerous films with long runtimes and intermissions, there’s been a re-emergence in recent years of contemporary filmmakers who have both embraced those aspects and supposedly challenged the conventional commercialism and artificiality of modern cinema. On the heels of such titles as Ryusuke Hamaguchi‘s Drive My Car and Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon , actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (along with co-writer and partner Mona Fastvold) presents a sprawling, three-and-a-half-hour epic drama about a Hungarian architect (and Holocaust survivor) who emigrates to America after the Second World War for new opportunities, only to have those opportunities squandered.  Shot in the rare and expensive 70mm VistaVision format (with a built-in 15-minute intermission), The Brutalist was reportedly filmed in 34 days, with a budget of no more than $...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 28, 2025.   Very rarely does a horror feature make such an impact in the film industry that critics and audiences can’t help but notice, whether we like it or not. In a case where such a film has been making numerous rounds in the awards and critical circuits (including this season’s Oscars), Coralie Fargeat’s excessive and repulsive body horror extravaganza, The Substance , stands out as a satire on beauty, appearance, and media pressures when it comes to body standards, especially for women.  The small cast includes Demi Moore as aging movie star-turned-fitness instructor Elizabeth Sparkle, who is told by her chauvinistic, greedy, and over the top boss (played by Dennis Quaid, whose shrimp-gorging scene should be enough to convince you of such) that her best days are behind her. After miraculously surviving a horrible car wreck, she hears about an underground experimental drug that can revive ...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted in my Facebook page on February 28, 2025.   The Substance wasn’t the only film from 2024 that dealt with (and satirized) perceptions of appearance, as well as identity. Writer-director Aaron Schimberg made a dark tragicomedy about a man with facial deformities who undergoes an experimental surgery and gets a regular face. The results, however, come back to haunt him when he meets a man with the same condition—but who embraces it.  Sebastian Stan stars as the titular shy and introverted Edward (initially in prosthetic makeup), who is used to loneliness and discrimination behind his back. “All unhappiness in life,” says one of his neighbors, “comes from not accepting what is.” His doctors, on the other hand, inquire, “Perhaps, any potential risk is worth the potential reward,” despite potential side effects. Renate Reinsve is his playwright neighbor Ingrid, who takes a liking and interest to Edward’s character. She’s talkative,...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on March 3, 2025.     Heading into the telecast of the 97th Annual Oscars ceremony, there were largely no clear-cut front-runners in each respective category, especially since the other award shows leading up to it had diverse contenders and winners. A few standouts that most people were rooting for—and who did win last night—included supporting roles by Kieran Culkin (for Jesse Eisenberg’s live-wire dramedy A Real Pain ) and Zoe Saldaña (for Jacque Audiard’s controversial crime musical Emilia Pérez ). The latter became “the first American of Dominican origin” to win an Oscar, while the film itself—which has been slowly sinking into scrutiny in recent weeks, due partly to lead actress Karla Sofia Cascon’s past tweets—was recognized for one of its two nominated songs (written by Audiard and songwriters Clément Ducol & Camille). Strangely, the controversy surrounding the film seemed to kind of fade throug...

WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 24, 2025. [In light of the current on-and-off winter season, here’s a little throwback for all you animation buffs.]  By the middle of the 2000s, Hollywood apparently had a real fascination with penguins, from the scene-stealing birds in DreamWorks’ Madagascar to the fascinating Warner Independent documentary March of the Penguins . After overseeing two Babe movies the previous decade, director George Miller turned to the medium of animation to present a stunning and entertaining song-and-dance romp about Emperor penguins in Antarctica.  All the flightless birds in this story sing, except for Mumble, whose musical vocals would actually shatter ice. (That’s a figure of speech.) The little tyke (voiced by E.G. Daily as a baby, and by Elijah Wood as a young adult) does have a unique ability to dance, especially tap. His arc soon becomes a hero’s journey, as Mumble vies for the affections of the b...

  WRITER’S NOTE: The following was originally posted on my Facebook page on February 21, 2025.  After one solo entry in 2024, Marvel Studios gets back on schedule—and back-to-basics, in a sense—with multiple projects out this year, starting with the latest iteration of Captain America. In Brave New World , Sam Wilson a.k.a. the Falcon (the awesome Anthony Mackie) has now taken on the mantel and shield, passed down from Steve Rogers. Meanwhile, former General Thaddeus Ross (the legendary Harrison Ford, replacing the late William Hurt) has now become the President of the United States, and a conspiracy that’s been covered up for years has been emerging, and under way. (“Who’s playing who,” we’re asked.) Did I mention there’s also a Red Hulk?  Shot on Panavision cameras but mimicking the look of film grain (opening black-and-white cards included), this new story makes references to the “Snap” (from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame ), as well as extraterrestrial ...